The field of medical devices has numerous instruments fashioned to remove veins. Most of the procedures pertaining to the use of the known instruments require full anesthesia, and must be performed in a hospital, where the patient may experience pain, complications, and resulting scarring from the procedure.
The original Harvester, as disclosed by the applicant in patent application publication no. 20040215226, is hereby incorporated by reference. The original Harvester is an instrument used to harvest veins, and comprises a handle, an elongated shaft and a tip, which contains a blade. This instrument is used by rotating the tip around the vein designated to be removed, resulting in the separation of the outside wall of the vein from the surrounding tissue, without any damage to the vein itself. Although the method of use of the Harvester is notably less intrusive than the other available methods and uses of other instrumentation, it nonetheless results in an incision on the skin at the knee, because the distal end of the vein would be severed by means of a percutaneous blade.
The present invention is an improvement of the Harvester, because it embodies an internal blade system, eliminating the need for use of a percutaneous blade. It also provides a number of other additional components, such as a new serrated tip facilitating severance of the side branches of the vein, an injection port with a cannula, which can be inserted through the hollow shaft of the device, with the cannula having an ability to retract automatically following injection. Another additional component is a cauterization device comprising of two or more wires extending longitudinally through the hollow shaft of the surgical device, with a the distal end of each said wire connected to the distal end of the other said wire or wires, allowing the user to heat and sever the vein. These improvements result in a less invasive, and more efficient procedure.